Feathered Friends

Feathered Visitors to Wicor Primary School, Portchester

Even though it is winter, and very cold over the last few weeks, we have been getting lots of bird visitors to our grounds.  In particular, we have a resident green woodpecker which we regularly see in our woodland area.  We decided to investigate green woodpeckers, Picus viridis, a little more and found out that they stay in the UK all year round.  We were really surprised to find out that they only reached the Isle of Wight in 1910 as that’s only a small jump across the water from us.  However, apparently that was the bit that green woodpeckers weren’t that keen on.  We were also really surprised to find out that they have weak bills as we often hear our woodpecker tapping away in the trees but they prefer soft dead wood when excavating for a nest.  We think our green woodpecker is female as we can’t see any red under her bill.   The green woodpecker likes a deciduous habitat and short grass, both of which we have lots of.

It really is a beautiful bird giving flashes of colour amongst our dark winter trees at the moment.  It has bright green on its upperparts, with a pale bellow underneath, a bright yellow rump and red on the top of its head.   Apparently, it has a nickname of ‘yaffle’ because that’s what its call sounds like – we hadn’t noticed this and will be listening out carefully over the next few weeks to see if we can identify it by its call before we see it.

In the summer, green woodpeckers like to eat ants (adult, larvae and eggs).  In the winter, when there aren’t so many ants around they will eat other invertebrates, pine seeds and fruit.  Green woodpeckers usually spend most of their time feeding on the ground, although at school we mostly see them in the trees – maybe there are too many children on the ground!   We have left lots of rough soft patches of grass around our woodland area and in the orchard for the green woodpecker to encourage them to feed and breed at school.  The Picus viridis has a long sticky tongue which can fish for ants deep in the nests for as long as an hour and will keep going back to the same ants’ nests again and again for weeks.  We were alarmed to read that some green woodpeckers will raid bee hives, so we have spoken to our beekeeper and he has reassured us the bees in our six hives are quite safe.

A fun fact is that ‘Professor Yaffle’, the wooden character in Bagpuss, was based on it.  It also has English folk names of rain-bird and weather cock as it is supposed to bring on rain.

At Wicor we have tried to make sure that we grow plants that are native and really helpful to wildlife especially in winter.  We have many holly bushes with berries on which the birds love (they also roost in the holly bushes as the spiky leaves give protection from predators) and positively encourage ivy, (Hedera helix), as it extends the season for our bees and has rich berries for the birds.  It also has really thick evergreen foliage which gives the birds shelter.   Along our main drive and in our coastal bed, we grow (and propagate) tuft forming grasses like Festuca gautieri which has fluffy seed heads through autumn and winter.  Lots of mini-beasts will hide in the grassy heads which the birds love too.  All around our grounds we have planted many, many native trees (120 last winter along including an elder grove and a nuttery) and we have lots of sorbus.  The elder, rowan and hawthorn trees around our site are really popular with birds providing lots of berries well into the cold, dark days.  Along one of our fences we have grown cotoneasters and pyracantha, which have lots of berries like the sorbus.   Among our many trees we have lots and lots of silver birches which are really beautiful especially the catkins and silver bark.  They are special trees as they keep producing catkins with seeds in during winter and many birds eat from them as they dangle from the branches.

During our grounds days we always think of the wildlife, and we harvest excess seeds all through the year.   We use fallen cones from our scots pine trees as structures for fat balls and pack them with the nutrient-giving seeds collected earlier.   We will be carrying on stuffing these cones for the rest of the winter, helping the feathered visitors to our grounds survive the cold.

Germinating Mistletoe

Germinating Mistletoe

We decided it would be interesting to try and grow some mistletoe at school, and as our Head Teacher had successfully cultivated some from seed at his home he helped us with the process.  February and March also happen to the best months for doing this.

Before we implanted the seeds, we decided to find out a bit more about this plant.  Mistletoe, Viscum album, is an evergreen plant and bears lots of cloudy white berries from winter to spring as well, which will help the wildlife in the grounds during the cold months.  If the mistletoe doesn’t produce berries, but flowers instead then it is probably masculine.  We also found out that mistletoe is semi-parasitic and lives on the water and nutrients from a host tree.  We thought that mistletoe would kill the host tree, but apparently it does not.  By introducing mistletoe to our grounds, we will be increasing biodiversity.

According to data from the National Mistletoe Survey cultivated apple trees are the favourite host for mistletoe, followed by lime and hawthorn – all of which we have at Wicor Primary School.  We also learnt that gardens are the favourite place for mistletoe to grow as there is more light than in woodland. 

From this information, we decided that our orchard, which has 15 heritage apple trees in and three lime trees would be the perfect place to cultivate mistletoe.  So on a dull, grey and wet February Friday we went to the orchard with Mr Wildman, our Head Teacher, with mistletoe berries from his garden.  He told us that we needed to rub the white berries onto the exact part of the tree where you want it to grow.  We thought that you might have to make a cut to rub the berries into, but according to Mr Wildman, it will stay where you rub it, as the inside of the berry is very sticky and it sticks to the healthy bark surface.  We thought it was really clever that birds help with the dispersal of mistletoe seeds because they get stuck to their bills. 

When the birds wipe their bills on tree branches, to remove the sticky substances, they are dispersing the seeds.  Blackcaps, Sylvia atricapilla, are really good at this and they are visiting the south of England even more these days which will mean more mistletoe!

Our research also told us that these berries are loved by birds including mistle thrushes Turdus viscivorus, redwings Turdus iliacus, waxwings Bombycilla garrulus and fieldfares Turdus pilaris.  Unfortunately, mistle thrushes are not very good at helping with the seed dispersal of mistletoe as they eat the berry whole and excrete the seeds missing the branches!  Mistletoe is also a really good habitat as well as a food sources: the mistletoe marble moth uses the leaves as a place to lay its larvae, and is a priority species.

 We will be keeping an eye on these seeds and hope to see if they have germinated later in the season.

The photo opposite shows a mistletoe seed just as it germinates.

Wicor Frosts

Winter Frosts

At Wicor Primary School we are encouraged to go outside in all types of weather, so a week of hard ground frosts (when the temperature of the ground falls below freezing point 0ºC/32ºF).

The cold weather has not stopped us from observing our grounds and finding out what happens to some of the animals in it, although the frosts do not seem to have bothered the triceratops in our Jurassic bed.  

It has certainly been very beautiful in the mornings, with many of the plants looking like they are wearing jewellery.  We have lots of grassy habitats at Wicor and although frost does not damage the grass, we found out that pressure on frozen grass causes the leaves to fracture and then ruptured cells can seriously damage it.  Knowing this it is amazing that our grass survives seeing as it has hundreds of feet stampeding on it every day!  We also compared a holly leaf to a frozen one under the microscope to try and see the differences.

Our pond has frozen over twice in the last week and in the past we have broken the ice thinking this would help.  However, new research by the conservation charity ‘Pond Conservation’ has shown that most wildlife in garden ponds will survive a pond freezing over if it is left alone.  Apparently, breaking a hole in the ice makes very little difference to the oxygen levels in the water and plants will also carry on photosynthesising under the ice.  We have therefore decided to just net the leaves this winter to stop them falling into the pond and turning into silt – this is a mucky job and so there are plenty of volunteers.

During the rest of the year, we regularly dip in the pond to see what is living in there, so we know we have long bodied dragonfly nymphs, smooth newts ‘Lissotriton vulgaris’, stags horn snails, common toads ‘Bufo bufo’ and common frost ‘Rana temporaria’, as well as pond skaters and water beetles.  Damselflies are also regular visitors. 

So this week we decided to investigate further and find out what happens to the frogs in our pond over winter.

Apparently, all frogs and newts (amphibians) in the UK must hibernate to survive the winter and frogs do this by lying dormant in compost heaps, leaf litter, underground tunnels or log piles.  So we have provided lots of winter habitats around the pond for our frogs including log piles all stuffed with fallen leaves.  There is also a large bug hotel made of pallets which they might like to overwinter in, and two small decking areas, where we sit and sketch, that provide additional shelter.   All of these areas let the frogs hide from predators and enter hibernation.  This is when their body functions slow down to a minimum and their bodies freeze.  Most creatures cannot survive this so the frog is the greatest toughie!  Sometimes frogs will prefer to overwinter in the bottom of the pond, where they will bury themselves in mud, and the temperature is slightly warmer.  They will be fine there unless the pond freezes over for a long period of time.  As ours has only been frozen for four to five hours at a time we think the frogs will be fine.

We were surprised to find out that frogs might even come out of dormancy to forage in milder periods of weather, so we will be on the look out for that in the next few weeks.